Every day Aluma Tower Company manufactures portable aluminum towers, shipping them across the country and around the world.

This multi-million dollar manufacturing business has been located in the center of Vero Beach on Old Dixie Highway for the past 40 years.

Yet chances are you've never heard of it.

You can easily drive by Aluma Tower's two locations and never notice either one. Angela Ledford, president and general manager, calls her company "a hidden gem."

From supporting emergency management, to surveillance, meteorology and communications applications, Aluma Tower is part of our lives, working invisibly, right under our noses.

Beneath radar

The company remains beneath the radar, despite winning two recent awards: the 2015 South Florida Manufacturer of the Year Award and the 2015 Indian River County Chamber of Commerce Manufacturer of the Year Award.

Back in the 1970s, Robert A. Main of New Jersey was in the midst of buying local manufacturing businesses.

"My dad was a workaholic," says his daughter, Susan Main Flannery, from her home in New Jersey. "He came to Vero Beach to visit a friend who owned a home there and decided he'd retire in Vero someday. He bought a small business, and went back and forth between New Jersey and Vero."

Main bought Ted Gottry's small ham radio and television company, though the men continued to work together.

"Ted played such an important part in building the business," Flannery said.

New markets

One day, a ham radio salesmen asked Main and Gottry to make a portable tower that he could take to the Keys and other remote places to show customers.

The two men created a folding, telescoping tower. The salesman put the tower on his van and business boomed.

The portable tower was the first milestone in Aluma Tower's success.

"The mobile van unit was the beginning of the mobile tower world," says Ledford. "Forty years ago when people used TV antennae, the higher the tower, the better the signal."

From that first portable tower, Main and Gottry developed a whole line of lightweight towers for the TV-receiving-signal market.

The next milestone occurred with the invention of cell phones.

"We were a force in developing a tower that was taller and could handle more load. Because the towers' design allows them to be without guy wires, they can handle a large payload for cell phones," says Ricardo Amaral, vice president of marketing and business development.

"Guy wires provide extra stability. They're necessary when a tower's base is narrow. The ones that don't require guy wires are shaped like the Eiffel Tower. But we use telescopic towers, one fitting inside the other," Ledford says.

Vital services

Today, Aluma Towers has two sites.

The northern building, on the northwest corner of Old Dixie Highway and 16th Street, faces furniture consignment shops to the east and the pink Chocolate Factory to the south.

The building is tan with a narrow strip for visitors' parking. But it's spacious inside. Along with administrative offices, this building houses the manufacturing floor, where welders build separate pieces of the towers.

The southern site is on Old Dixie near 10th Street, opposite Mrs. Mac's Fillin' Station Restaurant. Here, workers assemble the towers and prepare them for shipping.

"We're one of the main supporters in an emergency requiring rapid deployment," says Ledford. "When Katrina hit New Orleans, we were there to deploy data. That's what we did when the twin hurricanes hit Indian River County in 2004. FEMA uses us too."

Other uses

"It's not all disasters though. We're in the Magic Kingdom. Disney uses us to deploy their data network. We're behind the scenes at lots of big events when there's too much data for their regular system," says Amaral.

An Aluma Tower unit can also be a single tower that stays in place, monitoring and transmitting information.

"The Border Patrol uses us along with cameras to protect the Mexican-American border," Amaral says. "We can remotely capture people crossing the border in real time and transmit that info to the Border Patrol."

Other customers need a mobile tower. For them, there's a system that mounts the tower to a vehicle, such as a van or trailer.

"People tow their mobile units the same way they tow a boat. It's a mobile, data-network operations center often used for surveillance purposes. It captures license plates and has face recognition. Some of our customers, such as the Department of Defense, are top secret. I can only tell you we work with them. That's all. We're very discreet," Amaral says.

Vero Beach customers include radio stations, ham radio operators, farms and citrus groves, as well as the water treatment and power plants.

The towers have a unique construction, easily recognizable from the road. First, no matter how old the tower, it always looks brand new.

"The aluminum stays shiny. There's an Aluma Tower behind a bait shop near Oslo Road on U.S. 1" says Amaral. "It's been there for 36 years, transmitting information to boats at sea."

Company makeover

Ledford joined Aluma Towers in 2014. A Navy brat, he was born in Japan and raised in the Midwest.

"When I started, they'd gone through a stretch of low sales and did a turnover in management. I was brought in along with a number of consultants to reinvent the business," Ledford explains.

Since it began, Aluma Tower was accustomed to manufacturing a low volume of highly customized products. The owners wanted to increase profits so Aluma Tower switched to the opposite method.

In 2014, it began making more standardized towers that could be used for many different purposes.

It worked.

One of the company's biggest successes came recently when Amaral sold 30 units of "trailer/shelter cells on wheels" overseas.

"It was a multimillion-dollar opportunity, bringing our growth to 70 percent. It pushed our company much closer to our goal and doubled our revenue in 2014," Ledford says. "Doubling it again is our goal for 2016."

Working together

Ledford loves working at Aluma Tower and the challenge of putting a new business plan in place.

"Everyone is energized and passionate. It's a great culture," she says.

Ledford's background is in wireless communication. She worked with the first company to develop multiple modems.

But Amaral's background is very different. Originally from Brazil, with a background in communication and marketing, Amaral worked at Disney World for years. He originally came to the U.S. for an internship at Kennedy Space Center, more than 10 years ago.

"Along with reinventing the business, Ang and I are becoming community-minded. We want to reach out and become involved in nonprofit work," Amaral said.

Growing together

New outlook

While Ledford and Amaral have done a great deal towards giving Aluma Tower a new outlook, both make the same point: none of this would be possible without the consistent, high quality work of the employees, all of whom are local.

"What matters are the guys on the shop floors. They make an excellent product. They're active participants in the design and production. They don't just turn wrenches – they're really part of the whole quality process," Amaral said.

The feeling is mutual.

Ridert Rivero is one of the prominent members of the Aluma Tower's welding team and has been there seven years.

"I feel respected here. She's very fair," says Rivero of Ledford.

John Blume, production manager for the north shop has been with Aluma Tower five years and calls it a second family.

"We have the same goal here. We're feeding our families and making this company strong. All of us are committed to growth and working safely," says Blume.

Susan Main Flannery agrees. She and her husband have a home on the beach and will be here for a good part of the winter.

"We have total confidence in the new management team," Flannery says. "The company has evolved into manufacturing today's sophisticated portable communication units, led by Angela Ledford and her talented team. We are excited for the future of the company."

Specialty Publications

Advertise with us

The Vero Beach Newsweekly is inserted into the Indian River Press Journal every Wednesday and home delivered to select non-subscribers in Indian River County reaching more than 25,000 homes every week; nearly 9,000 to affluent homes in the 32963 area code. No other publication or combination of publications comes close to delivering your advertising message to nearly every home in Indian River County. Let us help you target your advertising message for better results.